Vindictus Fiona Guide

Vindictus Fiona Guide by loadjade

Introduction

Ok, so here I will post some of the goody tips for Fiona gameplay that I came across playing Korean version of Vindictus.

So who is Fiona?

Fiona is a balanced female warrior who wields a longsword and a shield. She is not particularly offensive-focused like Lann, but her combat style is based on the concept which states ‘stronger defenses connect to even stronger offenses.’

She can execute counterattacks while carrying small shields to effectively neutralize most enemies encountered in Vindictus gameplay.

or

She can carry large shield, which grants better protection over all sorts of attacks that small shields cannot defend effectively. However large shields render Fiona unable to execute counterattacks.

As to weapons choice, she mainly wields one-handed longsword but later can learn to use longhammer as well. Longhammer Fiona users have completely different set of normal / smash attacks and they might look clumsy, but inflict tremendous amount of damage.

How To Guard

There are two types of guard that can guard enemies’ normal attacks. (You can guard smash attacks with the skill called Heavy Stander.)

These two types of guards are called ‘Normal Guard’ and ‘Perfect Guard.’

—————–Perfect Guard—————–If you guard a normal attack at the right timing (i.e. just before you get hit), you see greenish flame sparking out of your shield and you do not use your stamina at all.

—————–Normal Guard—————–But if you guard it too fast, or guard while you were just standing there keeping your guard posture, you will see yellowish flame sparking our of your shield and you WILL use your stamina. You end up using 16 stamina points when executing Normal Guard.

Stamina is one of the most important aspects of Vindictus’ battle system, so if possible, you should Perfect Guard.

But there is another and more important reason that you should try Perfect Guard…. that there is a ‘difference in shield durability decrease.’

So how efficient is Perfect Guard then?

After set of experiments conducted before, we concluded that

1. Decrease in shield durability caused by an attack is not an absolute value but is a variable value that has certain range even if it is a same type (same motion, etc.) of attack from same monster.

2. This ‘range’ seems to be quite broad, and we speculate that even it is the same Perfect Guard, there might be difference in shield durability decrease based on miniscule difference in guard timing.

3. Comparison of the average of durability decrease shows that Perfect Guard is 14 times more efficient than Normal Guard.

It is interesting to note that this Shield Breakage Power is not based on how strong that attack is. That means, even if attack A takes more HP away when hit than attack B, the latter could have higher Shield Breakage Power.

Indeed this Shield Breakage Power is unique to every type of attack of an enemy.

More experiments suggest that faster combo attacks tend to have lower Shield Breakage Power compared to slower single attacks that tend to have higher Shield Breakage Power.Skill Guide Lv.1 to Lv.20

As you might already know, the skills in Vindictus is not a super necessity but the game emphasizes more in the individual control skills and cooperation with your party members.

Plus, you cannot really ‘ruin’ your character just because you invested lots of AP to certain skills. We all know there are certain games in which if you put your skill points in ‘wrong’ skills, you might as well just need to wipe that character out and start a new one to be as competitive as others.

Well, Vindictus isn’t like that so rest assured. That being said, there surely are some differences among skills as in how efficient a skill is (i.e. how efficient a skill is if you devoted this amount of AP into it.)

This guide is to give some insight on how much AP does a skill require to raise a rank and how efficient the skill is.

So here it goes…

1. Lv.1 through Lv. 20 This is a skill guide up to level 20 where players start to get used to the unique combat pattern of Fiona, that is, guarding with shield connecting to continuous attacks as well as execution of timely evasion. Level 20 is where Fiona learns how to use counterattack, which is one of the most important aspects of Fiona gameplay.

Addional perk granted when reaching 9th rank: can execute Swift Counterattack Recommended Rank: Rank C / Rank 9 (after this it’s your choice) – As you rank up GUARD skill, your shield can chew up more damage until it’s finally broken and it will also reduce the amount of stamina you use when normal guarding. – If you execute perfect guard, shield damage is virtually none and stamina doesn’t get used up, so even though GUARD doesn’t require too much APs, there is no immediate need to reach a higher rank in advance. – You can execute Swift Counterattack from Rank 9 (what this does is if you perfect guard, your next following attack becomes your third normal slash, which means you can execute stronger smash attacks in a shorter amount of time). – Rank D is prerequisite for HEAVY STANDER. – Rank C is prerequisite for COUNTERATTACK. =====================================================

Recommended rank: Rank A – Weight of your shield is decreased and its durability increases as rank proceeds. Can equip higher level shields. – Unlike armors, Fiona’s gameplay is significantly impaired if shield is broken so the shield durability is important. – It may sound weird but If shield durability increases, the amount of shield durability decrease due to execution of GUARD, HEAVY STANDER and COUNTERATTACK is decreased as well. Almost like win-win situation. – Rank 9 is prerequisite for LARGE SHIELD MASTERY.

Recommended rank: Rank F – The interval that you can get bonus AP is decreased. – It may sound superb to alot of you but it just takes too much time to recover all the APs you’ve put to improve this skill. – Calculation shows it takes about an year to recover all of 1430 APs invested to reach Rank A. – If you put some AP into this to reach any of rank E to B (not upto A), it even takes more time to retrieve those APs spent. – If you play Vindictus around 5 years, then you can accumulate approx. 5600 APs than those who didn’t reach Rank A of meditation. If you plan to play this game that long, please rank up. Otherwise, please don’t.

Additional perk granted when reaching Rank 9: you can execute third combo attack of IVY SWEEP. Recommended rank: Rank 9 / Rank 6 – Skill that improves Fiona’s smash attack Ivy Sweep (Attack x3 – Smash). You can execute two smash attacks (sideway shield bash then connecting diagonal upper slash) but you can execute strong additional smash attack of violent spinning kick that virtually attacks everyone around you and this is really useful when Fiona is surrounded by bunch of smaller enemies as she does not have an attack that has all around attack range before this spinning kick. – You can only execute up to the upper slash (second smash) until the point of Rank A. These attacks are not particularly strong, have limited attack range and have tremendous amount of ‘after delay.’ – So if you want to improve your Ivy Sweep, it is advised to rank up straight up to Rank 9. – Grants 2% damage / 1% groggy value accumulation increase each rank up (From Rank F to Rank A) – Grants 4% damage / 3% groggy value accumulation increase (From Rank A to Rank 9) – Grants 3% damage / 1% groggy value accumulation increase each rank up (From Rank 9 to Rank 7) – Grants 5% damage / 3% groggy value accumulation increase (From Rank 7 to Rank 6) – Reach for Rank 9 then decide whether to go for Rank 6 based on how often you use Ivy Sweep.

Recommended rank: Rank E – Decreases weight of clothes armors and improves defense rating and durability of each piece of clothes armor. Can wear higher level clothes armor. – Reason why rank E? Reinforced Headband requires rank E. You do not have to wear Reinforced Armor set so if you plan to not to wear them, do not invest. – If you start to feel free of AP constraints (which you will never do until reaching about almost Lv. 70), you could invest your APs for your good looking costumes (for showoff) or ‘pajamas’ that improves your MEDITATION skill interval. =====================================================

LIGHT ARMOR PROFICIENCY E(30) D(90) C(120) B(150) A(180) Total AP 570

Recommended rank: Rank E / Rank B – Decreases weight of light armors and improves defense rating and durability of each piece of light armor. Can wear higher level light armor. – Reinforce Boots requires rank E. Savage Leather Armor set is also light armor type but again, you do not have to wear these. – Royal Cadet Heavy Beret from Royal Cadet Heavy Armor set [Lv.52] requires rank B so plan accordingly to reach rank B by level 52. – If you really wanna wear some of the light armors, then you could invest more. =====================================================

HEAVY ARMOR PROFICIENCY E(30) D(90) C(120) B(150) A(180) Total AP 570

Recommended rank: Rank A – Decreases weight of heavy armors and improves defense rating and durability of each piece of heavy armor. Can wear higher level heavy armor. – Considering the most of armors Fiona wears are heavy armors, this skill is shows top-notch efficiency. – Decrease in weight and increase in durability are also important but mostly, it grants defense rating increase by 410 if you end up wearing all 5 parts of heavy armor. – Considering Rank 9 of DEFENSE skill grants 420 defense rating increase and requires 1920 AP (it’s not typo), this skill has high AP efficiency as well. – Rank D is prerequisite of PLATE ARMOR MASTERY. – You need this skill later on anyways so keep raising rank. =====================================================

Recommended rank: Rank A – This skill minimizes decrease in shield durability when guarding via HEAVY STANDER. Will also decrease amount of residual damage that Fiona suffers. – This is stronger guard posture that allows Fiona to survive against smash attacks, and is the essential element of indispensable individual control skill called ‘HEAVY STANDER Cancelling.’ – You cannot execute HEAVY STANDER when your shield is broken. And this means you cannot execute HEAVY STANDER Cancelling as well. – Even if she guards using HEAVY STANDER, Fiona will suffer 40, 30, 20, 10, 5% of smash damage from Rank F to B respectively. – If you have lower rank than rank A, you will get some damage. And this makes you unconciously execute more rollings and evasion via dash-smash. If you want to experience for Fiona-like combat, then reach for rank A soon. HEAVY STANDER is not a last resort, but an extension of offensive. – As you master HEAVY STANDER, you can keep attacking for a longer time before falling back to guard posture then start attacking again right after enemies’ attack. =====================================================

Additional perk is granted when reaching rank 9: Fiona can immediately roll backward and rise when knocked down to the ground by pressing evasion key (direction key + space bar) in exchange of some stamina. Recommended rank: Rank 9 – Grants some chance that Fiona resists knockdown. – When activated, Fiona does not get knocked down but is pushed backward. She IS invulnerable during this short period of time. – Fiona can rise rightaway after reaching rank 9, but since she doesn’ knocked down for an extended amount of time like Evey does, so there is no need rank up in haste. – Latter boss enemies start to unleash smash combos for terrible, terrible damage, so the additional perk gets really useful when it comes to these enemies but not in early stage. =====================================================

CAMPFIRE E(30) D(50) C(70) B(90) A(110) Total AP 350

Recommended rank: Rank A – Ah the famous CAMPFIRE skill of mabinogi returns. – You can build up a campfire site. Each campfire site needs two wooden sources (except you can even use pumpkins or other vegies as well!) to start fire. – When sitting down on the ground near the campfire (F11 does sitting), HP is gradually increased and after 10 seconds, you get Attack Power increase buff and – don’t panic – Automated Armor / Shield Repair buff as well! – Until you acquire SHIELD REPAIR skill, you need repair kit for your shield. That means you cannot execute COUNTERATTACK or HEAVY STANDER as one pleases. But if you have this buff, you equipments get repaired automatically as time progresses. – If rank is low, shield might suffer more damage than the buff can handle and will break. Once broken (red equipment mark when pressing ALT to check), the buff cannot repair the broken equipment. You need to either use repair kit or use anvil that comes with ‘active – on fire’ CAMPFIRE.

Recommended Rank: Rank D – Increases damage of normal attacks. – 4% damage increase per rank from Rank F to A. – 8% damage increase per rank from Rank A to 9. – 4% damage increase per rank from Rank 9 to 6. – Longsword Fionas tend to have longer ‘after delays’ so choose accordingly based on how often you actually land your nomal attacks on enemies. – Hammonas (Longhammer Fionas) have higher normal attack multiplier and relatively shorter ‘after delays’ so they tend to benefit more out of this skill. – Rank D is prerequisite of SMASH MASTERY. – 48% damage increase when in Rank 6. – If you tend to use Magnolia (attack x 2 – smash) more often (i.e. using large shield mainly) then since first two normal attacks have minimal amount of ‘after delays’ so it is advised to invest in COMBAT MASTERY. =====================================================

Recommended Rank: ? – Increases damage and groggy value accumulation of Amaranth Kick (attack x 4 – smash). – 2% damage / 5% groggy value increase. When in Rank A, Amaranth Kick’s groggy value is one of the top class in the entire game. – But if you use Magnolia (attack x 2 – smash) more than Amaranth Kick, then you do not have to put too much effort into.

Recommended Rank: Rank 6 – Improves damage and groggy value, decreases amount of shield durability deterioration. – Damage of COUNTERATTACK is about 94.3% of Magnolia and 50% of Amaranth Kick. That means this is a stong attack skill. – Groggy value accumulation is superb as well. Two or three of COUNTERATTACKS easily knock down a boss until Episode 4. – When in low rank, decrease in shield durabiliy is tremendous and the shield will break pretty soon. – Superbly AP demanding but if you want to use COUNTERATTACK more actively, at least put you effort to bring this skill to Rank A. =====================================================

She will raise her shield first then crouch into lower position to get more stability while holding her shield to cover most of her body.

So… you might wonder… What does this to do with cancelling?

Let’s talk about what ‘cancelling’ actually is.

The term started to emerge during the heyday of fighting games such as Street Fighters or King of Fighters, etc.

Suppose you execute a move, to say, Hadouken (ranged attack move of Ryu from Street Fighter, you better know this ). As soon as the move is carried out, the projectile moves forward but Ryu is still in motion, to say, he needs to retract his arms after unleashing the projectile.

This small chunk of time needed to return to original (neutral) posture is called ‘after delay,’ because it’s a delay that comes after an attack is carried out. During this time, a character is vulnerable to any sorts of attacks, as he/she/it cannot move or guard.

Now let’s look at Fiona’s awesome Amaranth Kick (attack x 4 – smash). She surely loves to use her legs as her main weapon. Wonder she’s got adamantium leg bones or something… (refer to wikipedia if you don’t know what adamantium is )

So she executes fierce 180 degree turn backkick, attacks everything in frontal arc, then she needs to retract her leg and take some time to return to her neutral posture in order to move or attack.

And this is the important part, you can execute HEAVY STANDER whereever this ‘after delay’ is present to ‘cancel’ the delay. As soon as HEAVY STANDER is executed, you can stop HEAVY STANDER to return to neutral posture.

This greatly reduces amount of time needed to take next action, and this is a must control skill that every Fiona needs to learn to better survive (…or serve your teammates).

So the sequence is as follows:

Execute an attack – quickly drop down to HEAVY STANDER – let all the guard go as soon as you see your Fiona shows signs of dropping her body – Your Fiona doesn’t suffer after delay anymore: can move, attack or guard right after this.

HEAVY STANDER CANCELLING shouldn’t take more than fraction of a second, compared to more than half a second or even a second of after delay you normally get.

If you do it fast enough, you shouldn’t even hear the clinking sound effect whenever Fiona falls into HEAVY STANDER.

Application of HEAVY STANDER CANCELLING

Shield Bash (Dash – Smash)

Starting from normal cancelling of after delays of smash attacks, Fiona can even use this technique to quickly unleash serious of repeated attacks.

One of them is Shield Bash Combos. Shield Bash is just a shield bashing attack that can be executed by pressing smash button while sprinting. (dash-smash)

Fiona quickly charges (almost like teleporting ) about 2 or 3 steps to front while holding her shield up, bashing enemies in the line of movement.

This attack is extremely useful in both offensive and defensive. As to offensive, this knocks down all the small to medium sized enemies.

Considering Fiona doesn’t attack in sweeping motion too often and rather slower in speed, this move is useful as you can knock down enemies first then attack safely.

As to defensive, she almost teleports about 2 or 3 steps in the direction of her Shield Bash. This is also useful when a boss tries to hit her in a quick but straight in line attack motion. You could be just sprinting and execute Shield Bash to the sideway to quickly get away from the line of motion. This gives better time to respond, reduces of stamina used and surely shows your love of your shield as well.

With all that being said, you can put HEAVY STANDER between each Shield Bash move.

So one might wonder, ‘you need to tap either of front, left, right or back button twice quickly to dash, and that takes too much time.’ So when we are sprinting, we use SHIFT button. SHIFT button lets your character to sprint while holding down.

Also useful considering Paladin Fiona actually shoots series of homing magic missiles when executing SMASH attacks. Yes, I use this Shield Bash Combo to unleash magic missile barrage to safely and steadily pull the damage on bosses. (not always tho.) They call this type of Paladin Fiona a Combat Bomber.

Here is an Youtube showing some HEAVY STANDER CANCELLING. After each smash attacks, you can see her showing small backward waving movement. That’s where she starts to fall into HEAVY STANDER but stops doing that right after since just the activation of HEAVY STANDER is good enough to take after delay away.

If you are using small shields you can see backward waving motion. If you are using large shields you can see forward waving motion. This is due to difference in HEAVY STANDER motion between two shield types

Hope that sums up. Practice while you are on the ship. I wasn’t able to do this first time I saw it. But as they always say out there loud, practice makes it perfect.

If you can do the front, try sideways and backwards as they come in handy evading attacks while still looking at your enemies.